Hebrew

אלפבית עברי

Abjad · 22 letters

Only consonants are written; short vowels are guessed from the word. Reading therefore means recognising the word, which makes transliterating an unknown name uncertain — and worth it anyway, since the aim is to place, not to translate. Arabic and Hebrew.

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What pays off on the road

• Only one country writes it: recognising its square letters is enough, it is Israel. Arabic and English are usually on the same sign.
• רחוב street, שדרות avenue, כביש road: three words that cut up a sign.
• Reading a name: the look-alikes first — ד and ר, ב and כ, ה ח and ת differ by an angle.

How it works

Vowels are not written

מרכז is written m-r-k-z and read "merkaz", centre. Short vowels have no letter: you guess them from the word, and only if you already know the word.

Points and strokes to write them do exist — the niqqud — but they only appear in children's books, poems and sacred texts. No road sign carries them.

Three letters are the exception and do note long vowels: א (alef), ו (vav) and י (yod). That is little, and it is why an unknown name cannot be pronounced with any certainty.

Five letters change at the end of a word

כמנפצ become ךםןףץ when they end a word. Same letters, same sound: only the tail is drawn out downwards.

They are easy to spot, and that is a gift: a final letter tells you where a word stops, which is exactly the first difficulty when you cannot yet read.

What looks alike

Hebrew is square and regular, which makes it handsome and tiresome: six letters differ by a rounded corner or a stroke that juts out. ד and ר, ב and כ, ה ח and ת are the three families to know.

Only one letter rises above the line, ל (lamed), and only one drops below it apart from the finals, ק (qof). Between them they give a Hebrew text its relief.

Cheat sheet

The ones that change at the end

Five letters take another shape when they end a word. The table shows both: the ordinary form, then the final one. Same letter, same sound.

The two silent ones

They note no sound at all. They carry the vowel that is not written, and that is their whole job — reading them as an "a" is the commonest beginner's mistake.

The ones that look alike

Three families, and a corner for all the difference. כ (kaf) belongs with ב but sits above, among the finals.

The rest of the alphabet

Nine letters that mislead no one. Two of them, ו and י, double as long vowels.

The words on signs

Countries

Israel

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